


From Scratch

by SUNicorn (Strider_Sis)



Series: Giveaway Fics [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Baking, Fluff, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 11:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strider_Sis/pseuds/SUNicorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dirk and Jake have finally talked Jane into teaching them how to bake cakes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Scratch

**Author's Note:**

> A fanfic for one of my lovely followers on tumblr, shipperofships, who just so happened to win one of my giveaways.

They had finally done it.  They had talked Jane into teaching them how to bake.  She was sighing as she looked her two pupils up and down.  Dirk was being his ironic self and wore the frilliest, pinkest apron she had ever seen.  It would work though, so she had no complaints.  Jake on the other hand... "Jake, I'm simply going to have to demand that you un-equip your strife specibi for this particular operation."  He pouted.  "But Jane-"  She cut him off.  "No Jake.  No guns while baking.  If you wanted to use your guns today you should have gone with Roxy to the firing range."  He sighed dejectedly and did as she asked.  "Thank you.  Now, if you would put this on?"  She held out her father's old apron.  To have Jake wear it... she wasn't sure if she was ready for it, but she didn't have any choice.  It was the only other apron around, and her attempts to alchemize one had been to no avail.  He took the simple garmet and donned it.  She nodded in satisfaction.  They were ready to begin.

 

She turned to the kitchen island behind her, ensuring her own red apron was secured properly in the back.  When Dirk had arrived he had gazed at the garmet in disgust (in human terms, the most mildly put out expression ever took over his face for one millisecond.  For a Strider- as Jane had learned- that counted as a full-on scowl) but chosen to say nothing, for which she was grateful.  She did not wish to argue with him today.  

 

"Now then," she began, "I've already prepared everything we'll need.  We're making a simple vanilla cake with buttercream icing.  Jake, if you could preheat the oven to 350 degrees, I'll show you both how to grease a pan."  Jake nodded.  He knew how to do that much at least.  Once he was back over, she showed them how to rub the butter all over the inside of the cake pan before dusting it with flour, explaining that it kept the cake from sticking.  She always preformed this step, even with a non-stick pan.  She then had them work together to grease the second pan. 

 

It was a valiant effort, ending with flour everywhere, but it was greased.  Staring at the aftermath, Jane swallowed.  Maybe this would be harder than she had thought.

 

Brushing her misgivings aside, she then directed their attention to the other items on the counter.  "We'll start with the dry ingredients.  In the smaller bowl by your elbow Dirk, we are going to mix the flour and baking powder.  The recipie calls for salt, but you only really need to add it if you are using unsalted butter, which we are not.  I find it rather uneccessary to go out of my way to do such things."  At this point, Jake interjected.  "Uh, Jane?  No offense intended or anything, but I thought we were going to be using a cake mix."  She countered without missing a beat.  "None taken, but you asked me to teach you to bake, and that is what I'm doing.  If you wanted to use a cake mix, you could have bought one and done this on your own.  As long as one can read, it is hardly possible to mess one of those up."  

 

Dirk couldn't help it.  Ever since the gun argument he had been reigning in his amusement.  He snickered.  His two friends (who he had to admit were terribly attractive) turned to stare at him.  At the looks on their faces, he full out lost it.  "Oh God, you two, that was perfect.  Irony has been acheived, congratulations.  You are most definitely ecto-siblings."  Jake blushed furiously as Jane's expression fell.  "I wish you wouldn't bring that up..." she muttered.  Immediately, it was no longer funny.  "Oh, I'm sorry Janey, I'm so sorry, listen, let's just forget about it, okay?  You were saying something about flour?"

 

As always, baking lifted her mood.  She brightened immediately and got right back to it.  "Yes!  Flour and baking powder in that bowl by your elbow!"  She grabbed a cup measure and the flour and moved closer.  Dirk was acutely aware of just how close she was as she showed them how to carefully measure the ingredient.  She beamed up at him once the white dust was safely dumped in the bowl.  "Okay?"  He gulped and nodded, feeling Jake's suspicious gaze on him.  "Alright, your turn!"  She shoved the two items into his hands and assisted a bit as he carefully measured and dumped.  Then, it was Jake's turn.  Dirk watched, slightly envious, as Jane had to literally hold Jake's hand the entire way through the simple process.  Still, once that was done she handed him the baking powder and a tablespoon and asked him to put one measure of the levening agent in with the flower and mix for her.  Pleased that she trusted him with the task and not Jake, he attempted to do so in record time- only to get white powder everywhere.  Jane giggled as he blinked through his shades, and reached out to brush flour and baking powder off his clothes.  "Hoo hoo hoo!  I should have mentioned, if you move too quickly with flour it gets _everywhere!"_   Jake was laughing too, and Dirk's cheeks were turning positively red with shame.  Jane reached up and patted his cheek.  "There now, no harm done, no harm done.  We just keep going, and if worse comes to worse, improvise!  That's how chocolate chip cookies were invented!"  Jake stopped chuckling then to stare at her.  "Really?"  She nodded.

 

"See, what happened was a woman who ran a bed and breakfast (or some similar kind establishment) with her husband made chocolate cookies for her guests on a very regular basis.  She was just in the middle of preparing another batch when she realized she was out of baking chocolate!  So, she chopped up a chocolate bar and mixed that into the batter instead, hoping the chocolate would melt into the cookies in the oven and they would turn out as normal, despite the change in their production.  Well, that didn't go quite the way she had planned, but they were such a hit that she kept making them!  And that is how chocolate chip cookies were invented!"  She beamed at them as she concluded her story.

 

"Well, golly, that's amazing Jane!"  She nodded, excited.  "After all, necessity _is_ the mother of invention!"  Dirk nodded appreciatively at the story.  He most definitely felt better about his blunder now.  Jane was always good at cheering him up, she always knew just what to say.  It was lovely to have a beautiful friend like her, lovely indeed.

 

They soon moved on from their intermission, Jane showing them how to cream butter and sugar together in a bowl to make a kind of paste.  They then carefully mixed in the eggs and vanilla extract.  Once this was done, they alternated between adding the flour mixture and the milk, Jane guiding their every move.  By the time they had finished the batter the kitchen was filthy- there was batter and it's ingredients everywhere, but they had managed it.  Jane showed them how they were supposed to pour half of the mixture into each pan and level it by picking up the pan and dropping it several times.  She showed them how to scrape out the remaining batter with a spatula, so as not to waste any, and then she had them put the two pans in the oven, put the timer on, and help her clean up.  They had wiped down every dirtied surface, put away the ingredients they no longer needed, and were ready to start the dishes when Jake finally asked if he could have the bowl.  Dirk then objected that he wanted it too.  This turned into a full-out fisticuffs, with batter from the bowl dabbed onto everyone present in the process.  Finally, laughing and tired, they relented and gave the bowl to Jane who simply washed it along with all the other dishes while they wiped down the kitchen, which they had dirtied again in their scuffle.  Tired, and with five minutes left on the timer, they plopped onto the couch in the other room together, enjoying the smell of baking cake and each other's company.

 

* * *

 

When the timer went off, the two boys were asleep, so Jane rose from between them to go pull their creation from the oven.  She placed the two halves to cool and turned off the appliance before settling in to make the icing- they could learn about making icing themselves another day.  She coloured it four different colours- blue, pink, green and orange- and put it to the side while she prepared the now cooled cake for decoration.  She sliced off the rounded top of both of the two halves and- having placed one on a decorating plate- slapped a thick layer of icing on top of it before carefully stacking the other half on top of _that_ and making sure all sat nicely.  Then came the base layer of icing, around the sides and across the top.  Then, the decorative icing, in all their four colours on the white base.  When she was done, she covered it and cleaned up, content with her afternoon's work.  

 

Deciding she'd rather not cook dinner on top of an afternoon of baking, she ordered pizza.  While she was waiting for it, she recieved a call from Roxy letting her know that she wouldn't be coming back this evening, but tomorrow instead, having decided to stay with her ecto-biological teen mother for the night.  Once off the phone, Jane looked around.  She didn't want to wake the boys, but she needed something to do, so... she set up for a sleepover.  She had no way of knowing if they'd actually agree, but hey, what reason had they to decline?  Well... besides the fact that they were still romantically involved and might want time alone, and that she was the third wheel, and she always would be, and- she cut ehrself off, slapping her cheeks, eyes squeezed shut.  No Janey, you musn't think that way.  Be happy for them!  Just then, the doorbell rang.

 

Though Dirk had slept through Jane's movements, he did not sleep through the ringing of the doorbell.  No good Strider would.  He was up in an instant, flash-stepping to the door to find out who the fuck it could be waking him up.  It was only when he was opening the door that he came to the realization that this was not, in fact his house.  The sense of relief he felt when it was only a pizza delivery guy (when had they ordered pizza) was immense.  That could have ended very badly.  And here came Jane, scuttling towards the door, wallet in hand.  He held up his hand, palm out and dug out his own wallet.  "I got it Janey, no worries."  His texan lilt seemed to surprise the pizza man, but no smalltalk was made as the pizza was paid for and handed over.  He closed the door and turned to Jane, the most content expression she had ever seen him wear on his face.  "You didn't have to do that Dirk."  "No, but I wanted to.  Is Jake awake, or are we gonna get to dig in to this burning, greasy, cheesy delight without him?"  Jane smiled.  "I'll go wake him up."

 

So it was that the three of them found themselves eating pizza and guzzling tab while watching some horrible movie Jake had selected.  During one of the less interesting scenes, Dirk posed a question (much to Jake's annoyance, though he had been providing a running commentary non-stop.  Jane rolled her eyes.)  "So Janey, when do we finish the cake?"  Jane looked up in surprise, a string of cheese connecting her mouth to her pizza slice.  She chewed quickly and swallowed, grimacing as the not-quite-small-enough piece of food traveled down her esophagus and into her stomach.  "Oh, I finished it ages ago."  "What?!"  Both boys chorused this comment.  Jane jumped, surprised.  "Well, I thought that since you had fallen asleep I should let you rest, and I figured I could teach you how to make icing and decorate a cake another time, so..."  She stuttered to a stop.  Had she done something wrong in that simple action?  Oh, she was a terrible, terrible friend, they must be so angry with her...

That line of thought was cut off by a chuckle.  Dirk shook his head and smiled- really smiled, not Strider smiled, but _people_ smiled as he spoke.  "Oh Janey, what are we going to do with you?  You must really want us over here if you decided to prolong the teaching process like this."  Jake chimed in, not one to be silent in a situation such as this.  "We asked you to teach us and we fell asleep, it's not your fault, though I do wish you'd woken us up, I would have very much liked to see you working your magic."  She stared at them.  "Y-you're not mad?"  "Of course not!" Dirk's reply closely followed her question, and Jake sounded his agreement.  She sighed in relief.  So it was okay after all.  "So," Jake began, "When do we get to see the master's creation?"  Jane laughed.  "Well I don't know about 'master' or anything like that, but if you want to see it I can bring it out right now."  "Ooh, please do, I'd jolly well like to have a gander at it!"  Giggling at Jake's response, she went and grabbed the cake plate (which held the cake, obviously) three plates, three forks and a large knife to serve her- no, _their_ creation with.  

 

The boys oohed over the cake, and Dirk insisted on pictures before she cut it and served it up.  Jane declared it the best cake she had ever had a hand in making and it was, because she had made it with two of the three people she cared about most in the world.  The boys agreed it was one of her finest creations (though every one of her creations was one of her finest in their eyes).  Filled with cake, pizza and pop, the three snuggled up to finished watching the god awful movie Jake had chosen.  Overall, they had had a very good day.  

 

* * *

 

When Roxy returned the next morning, she discovered all three of them laying in front of the glowing t.v, completely naked and asleep.  "Awwww," she drawled, "I missed out on teh orgyyyyy!"

*eth

*thee

*fuck it

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, how do writing? I slaughtered these characters, I know, I'm sorry. 
> 
> Also, sorry about the really horrible hook-up, sometimes I think I can be as bad as Hussie himself.
> 
> The recipe I used is here, if any of you would like to try and recreate the cake they made: http://www.joyofbaking.com/VanillaCake.html
> 
> I tried to find a Betty Crocker recipe, but there were no simple vanilla cake ones, so I gave it up. Joy of baking is really awesome anyway, they always have really awesome recipes, I highly recommend it!
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, if you have any constructive criticisms, please leave a comment or send me a message!


End file.
